In order to stop wasting energy on mental chatter, sleep must be deep and breathing must be optimal.
But how many of us can honestly say that we sleep well?
Too often, workplace stress, and the reality of long hours cuts into our rest, leaving us constantly tired and unproductive.
A survey by thesleepjudge.com found that nearly 40% of employees in the hotel, food services and hospitality industry struggled to get enough sleep. Of these people, 47% said they were looking for another job.
Each year, sleep deprived employees affect bottom lines to the tune of $411 billion in lost productivity. In 2008, scientists reported that when people had trouble sleeping, they were more likely to take sick days, perform poorly at work and have higher healthcare costs. Over time, poor sleep was a significant factor related to negative changes across the board.
In 2010. More than 4000 employees from 4 US corporations were surveyed about their sleep. The study found fatigue-related loss of productivity was costing their employers $1,967 per employee per year.
There is ample research to tell us that sleep deprivation has very real health consequences. It contributes to chronic disease, hypertension, obesity, heart disease, diabetes and early death.
One article by Deloitte calls sleep “the ultimate performance enhancer. But its about quality and consistency rather than quantity.
BREATHING + MIND + SLEEP
In my work as a breathing coach, I frequently see the same 3-way link between sleep, breathing and mental focus.
The way you breathe impacts all of your body’s systems. It affects your mental processes and your physical functioning. Even when you just breathe a bit faster, blood flow and heart rate change. Faster breathing signals to your body that you are unsafe, and to protect the body, the brain wakes you up from sleep.
We often associate fast breathing with panic attacks, but its actually vey common to breathe fast as a matter of course.
If you take more than 14 breaths per minute during rest or sleep, you are breathing fast.
- When sleep is poor, the mind is busy.
- When breathing is poor, the mind is busy.
- When the mind is busy, attention span goes out of the window..
- How you breathe during the day…..
- Influences how you breathe during sleep…..
- If your breathing is fast, its likely to be shallow.
- Fast, upper chest breathing = restless mind.
- It works the other way too…….
- Restless mind = fast, upper chest breathing.
Fast, shallow breathing, often through an open mouth leads to poor quality sleep, insomnia, snoring, and sleep apnea – and this creates a vicious cycle.
To focus, you need a calm mind and deep sleep. And for this you need to break the cycle of fast, upper chest breathing. Why? The way your breathe during the day affects the way you breathe during your sleep And sleep deprivation makes the brain more active.
Quality sleep is a key ingredient for success. Deep sleep gives the brain a chance to clear its hard drive.
A process called synaptic pruning occurs when we sleep. This allows the brain to clean up the old, poor quality connections and strengthen high quality connections. A bit like when you defrag your computer.
Michelle trained with Patrick Mckeown back in 2021 and is a qualified Oxygen Advantage Instructor, along with studying with Clinical hypnotherapy mixed with Traditional Tibetan systems of breathing, meditation for menopause symptoms and sleep with Ben Wolff. This combination works perfectly and is injected into the classes she teaches.
